My Relationship With God | Bro. Zach McGee

Praise the Lord church. God is good.

Yeah, and all the time God is good.

Apologize if I seem like I'm nervous, because I am.

We have sweaty hands, so you might see me wiping them off.

Just sometimes they're easier than others, you know.

But by the help of God, we will. We will hear the word tonight.

So tonight I just want to quickly give honor to God, you

know, because of him, we are here and He is wonderful and

amazing. I give honor to my wife and my 2

wonderful daughters. I am blessed beyond measure

every time I look at them. And the hardest, the best and

the worst part of being a parent watching your kids grow up, you

know, of course, you want to see them grow up and it's wonderful

to see them grow, but you're also you miss the little stages

and just I just been learning to look back instead of with

longing, which is such appreciation for God has allowed

me to experience and I just I've been so blessed with them.

I thank God for for my family and I give honor to all of our

ministry teams. There are so many.

There's, you know, Pastor and his wife, brother and Sister

Mason, senior and Junior, Bishop and Sister McGee are our

cleaning crew. I could, I could go down the

list. There's just so, so many

ministries and I give honor to each and every one of them

tonight. But I have three different

scriptures to start us off with this evening.

We're going to jump around starting in the Old Testament

and then there's 2 verses in the New Testament.

They're not long, so I won't keep you standing long.

Deuteronomy 6 and five. And thou shalt love the Lord thy

God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all

thy might going into the New Testament in first John chapter

1 John 4:19

4, verse 19. We love Him because He first

loved us and then back a little ways.

Matthew 516 Let your light so shine before men that they may

see your good works and glorify your Father, which is in heaven.

So my topic tonight is just this, my relationship with God.

So let's just pray real quickly. Jesus, thank you God for your

presence in this place. Thank you God for everything

that you have done. God, we love you, we give you

glory and praise. God, anoint my mind and my lips.

God, the ministers, your word and open our understanding.

God in our hearts to hear and receive what you would have for

us this evening. Lord, we give you all the thanks

in Jesus name, Amen. You may be seated.

I will try. I will try to try to speak

quickly because I know the the hardest thing in the world is to

sit and listen to someone talk, especially since I'm not very, I

guess energetic and fun to watch.

I'm not asking for pity points, I'm just aware.

So I will speak with understanding to the best of my

ability. So but to go on the love that

God has for us is beyond amazing because even while we were

sinners in a state of rejecting His Holiness and going against

everything about His nature, He died for us to pay the debt,

debt and weight of our sin, even while knowing that most people

were never going to love Him back.

His love for us is so great that although His righteousness

demanded said to be punished in full, He could not bear to see

us pay the price. And so He stepped in himself to

pay the price for us. The more I think about it, the

more I realize how just so inadequate anything I do is.

I can't say enough. I can't do enough to add up to

the amount of love He has shown me, but all he's asking for is

just all of my love for him. He's worthy of infinitely more,

but just what I had to give is all he's asking for.

He even understands and still receives the various levels that

my best may look like from day-to-day because I don't have

100% to give every day. You know, we help all have ups

and downs. Sometimes my best is 60%, but if

I can give all that 60, that's all he's asking for.

He is very patient, especially when you consider any of the of

the false gods throughout human history.

They were never very kind. They were never understanding.

They were always very demanding and you just hoped they actually

heard you. And God, the real God, he's not

like that at all. He does expect our very best and

not to give less than that, but He's not asking for more, even

though He's worthy of infinitely more.

Through love, God takes up all of my slack.

He meets us at however far we are able to go.

The King of all creation has no duty or obligation to do this,

but He chooses to. How could I OfferUp anything

less than my very best? All He is longing for is a real

relationship with me, with every single one of us, for us to know

Him and be known by Him. The best way to build a

relationship is to communicate and spend time together to grow

in God. We must pray and read his word,

spending time in his presence. Prayer is just us speaking to

God and reading and listening to his word allows us to hear what

he has to tell us. And I'm going to focus a little

bit on the prayer at the beginning here because there are

there are different ways we can pray, just like there's many

different ways we can talk to our family or our friends.

Because some of my Co workers that I talk to every single day,

not every conversation is the same conversation, not you, but

not every conversation goes the same way.

And it's not a with all with the same mood, especially this week

in the heat, but it's different. There's different links that

we'll talk to people. There's different different

topics and prayer is much the same way because prayer, it can

be long, you can spend a long time praying.

And the benefit of that is it builds you spiritually because

it teaches you how to deny your flesh and satisfy the spirit.

And that is because the nature of our flesh wants to rush us

through spiritual things. Because most of the time when I

go to pray, I don't want to be here just just naturally

speaking. I, I don't because I'm thinking

I'd rather do something else. Not because I dislike God or

dislike prayer. It's just the moment I go to

pray, my mind scatters or I just think about I want to do

something else. But taking the time to pray for

a while will teach us. Denying our flesh, feeding

ourselves spiritually, and taking the time to stop and pray

help shift our focus. It's hard at first.

There's some of the altars in the Old Testament.

They had horns built on them, on the corners.

You were meant to tie down the sacrifice because if something

knows it's going to be killed, it doesn't go without a fight.

So the sacrifice, of course, is going to struggle.

It's going to be difficult. But if you tie it to the altar,

it wears down to the point where it can't fight back.

And everything in the Old Testament, most things, is a

type and foreshadow of spiritual matters to come.

Sometimes we just need to tie down our flesh at the altar and

let it wear down so that the spirit can grow.

And time. It is the most precious

commodity any of us have from the time we're born.

It's limited, it will end for us.

Anything we give time to is valuable, and if we can just

learn to give God more of that, we're going to see the change

throughout our lives. The more precious something is,

the harder it is to give to God, but the better it is to give to

God because He has a habit and a way of taking of whatever we

give and pouring it back out in a better way.

But short prayers are also really good.

They're easy to do throughout the day and it keeps us in

constant communication with God. Kind of like when you're texting

your friend throughout the day. It's not sitting there holding a

full on conversation, but it keeps the communication going.

And you know, the prophet Elijah, he did a very, very

short prayer and God sent down fire from heaven and proved in

front of all of Israel that he was the one true God.

Sometimes short in quality is mighty and anointed.

Prayer can also be done without words.

Hannah in the Old Testament, she was praying in her heart, not

even speaking the words aloud. God heard her and answered and

gave her a child. Sometimes our prayers are just

our tears and a broken heart because we just can't get any

words out. We don't even know what to say.

How many times have you gone to a friend or a parent of someone

you loved and you cried in their arms?

Because that's relationship, right?

That's good. Prayer, of course, can be

sophisticated, or what? What we think sounds

sophisticated, at the very least, when we're putting the

focus on God and His Holiness, not asking for anything, just

focus solely on Him. And Thanksgiving and prayer can

also be casual because He is our Father and our Friend who always

hears us. Because prayer is not about the

right words, the right volume, the right intensity.

It's not about the length of time, and it's not even about

the answer. Prayer is about communication

with God, learning to spend time with Him, knowing that He hears

us, and finding comfort in His presence.

There's something a lot of us, most of us men, can learn from

women. Women a lot of times will talk

not for an answer, but to talk to get things out.

It's a big part of being in a relationship.

Just that, open communication. We can do the same thing with

God, not always worrying about getting the answer, but just

pouring it out to Him. And we can trust Him with the

answer. We can have faith completely in

Him and faith. I don't remember why I heard the

quote, but I really like it. It's not just believing without

seeing it is a reasonable assurance.

And what you do not see, I like that, a reasonable assurance

because you know, my children and I'm sure you've seen them,

will just randomly jump off of something towards me with no

warning. It's the best.

But they do that because having spent time playing with, they

didn't start doing that. You know, they didn't just

randomly do it. One day they played with me and

got to know me as their dad as they grew up.

And they learned, hey, Dad catches us.

You know, it started small, you know, like little Truss fall on

the bed or something to just leaping randomly off the couch

and suddenly I'm like, OK, here we go.

Yeah, But you know, if they randomly did that right now,

they have a reasonable assurance that I will catch them.

Not because they see the future and brought back undeniable

proof that they can see and touch and taste and feel that I

have caught them, but because I have done it before.

Because they know me, they have a reasonable assurance that they

will jump and I will be there. And Even so, when we pray to our

Father with the reasonable assurance that He actively

listens and we'll catch us, and we'll catch our tears and we'll

catch our frustration and we'll catch whatever it is we had to

pour out to Him. Relationships are built on

communication and trust. The more we pray and spend time

in the presence of God, just like the more time they spent

playing with me, the more we're going to find just how faithful

and trustworthy He is that we can leap and He is there now.

Unlike the other relationships in our lives, the one we have

with God involves a worship as well as prayer.

We give God praises and glory because He is holy, He is

divine. The nature of His being demands

worship, but our worship is not put on as a show for others,

rather my worship and my prayer. It's about Him.

It's not about your opinion, it's not about your mood, It's

not about anybody else. What you think, what you see,

none of that. My worship 100% is about Him

regardless of what else is going on because his love and

greatness is greater than what's around me, even to the point of

this. And I had cut this out, but I'm

going to go ahead and bring it back in.

If my wife and I have an argument before we come to

church, it's it's the nature of marriage that happens.

Anybody married can say Amen, but have an argument before

church. And obviously when you get into

an argument of any type, more heated, less heated, whatever

your focus is kind of anywhere but on church.

But if I have an argument with my wife before work and I go

into work, I'm still going to do my job.

I'm still going to talk to people like normal because I'm

not going to let what happened outside effect this here my job.

It's the same when it comes to God.

I'm not going to lighten argument or a shifted mood or

anything outside of Him to change how I come to my

relationship with Him. I can let him know I'm

frustrated right now, but I'm still going to give you praise.

I mean, you can't hide your frustration.

He knows anyway, but he is so good that he's OK with that.

He's OK if you're mad at him. It happens.

We have feelings, so does he. He understands.

We can let him know and we can still praise him.

It's not hypocritical. It's not hypocritical if we just

don't feel anything to come in feeling nothing and still

Hallelujah Jesus. It's not wrong to not feel like

being here. It's not wrong to not feel like

doing anything for God. It's not wrong to even feel like

I just don't want to be a Christian because sometimes we

just don't feel like it. We don't feel like putting in

the effort. But love is a choice.

It's not a feeling worshipping when we don't feel anything just

shows the depth of our love for him.

Just like in a marriage when I still try to serve my spouse

even when the lovey dovey feelings aren't there.

Even when I may not be happy with her, make Sheena may not be

happy with me. We still serve each other and

help each other out. We may not feel like talking in

a moment, but but we know we're still in each other's corner.

Just because you're not feeling it right now doesn't mean you

can't give praise and glory and honor to God or spend time in

prayer. We worship God not because of

the feelings that come with it, but because we know Him.

And the more I grow in my relationship with Him, the

deeper I find my relationship to be.

Sometimes it's forced, but even when forced, it's still genuine.

Because I've tasted and seen just how good God is, and I've

decided that He is worthy of everything I can give,

regardless of the mood. And now I'm just going to pivot

a little bit here. I was hoping to be a bit

encouraging in the first half, and I might be stepping on toes

in this second-half. So my toes were stepped on too.

So they're still hurting. But God did lay this on my heart

and I want to speak this with love and I pray it brings us

growth spiritually and helps us out.

So here's another quote I read some time ago.

It's only embarrassing if you're embarrassed.

You see Graceland, she'll play around, use her imagination in

front of everybody, not embarrassed.

She doesn't find it embarrassing.

If you see someone 14 years old, they're probably not going to do

it because it's embarrassing. The only real difference besides

maturity levels, one finds it embarrassing and the other

doesn't. But I do love the quote because

it's also kind of freeing. There's a lot of stuff we think

is really embarrassing, but it's only because we find it

embarrassing. So there's, there's some stuff

I've been able just to let go of and it's been pretty nice.

But it hit me and my relationship with God, my prayer

life, my worship, trying to live holy, being separate from the

world, standing out. Sometimes when I say, Oh, I, I

don't listen to that or I don't go do those things.

It's only embarrassing if I'm embarrassed about it.

And I found if I'm embarrassed, it's because I'm more focused on

me than I am on him. And, you know, I don't know,

Apostolic Church. Our worship is normally pretty

expressive, but sometimes when we have guests, we kind of tone

it down because we worry, what will they think?

I don't want to be embarrassed if they see me suddenly take off

running. How quickly we can forget that

our worship is not done as a show for others because our

worship is for God. He didn't change just because

someone else walked in. So why did I?

We sing, we clap, we dance, we jump, we shout, we run, we bow

down, we raise our hands, We cry because God is too good to be

silent and motionless. The fact that He saved my soul.

He called me out from darkness and into His glorious light.

It is why we do our best to live holy lifestyles.

And yet, how many times have we found ourselves more worried

about the opinions of others then we do about making sure God

gets the glory? Mark 838 Whosoever, therefore,

shall be ashamed of me and of my words, in this adulterous and

sinful generation of him. Also shall the Son of Man be

ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the

holy angels. If I'm more concerned with how

worshiping God and living for Him is embarrassing or making me

stand out and being concerned about how others think of me,

I'm going to find that God's embarrassed to me.

You know what, what would be worse, Brother Reese, if you

went and introduced Malin to a different friend group of yours

and you're like, hey, this this one of my best friends, Malin,

and she's like, what? I can't acquaintance.

You know, she shows a bit of shame at being your friend.

It's that is the worst feeling and you think God feels any

different because in that moment that would happen, there'd be a

part of you to be like, I feel like a wall just went up right

now. And just like, oh, I don't know

about this friendship. God doesn't feel any different

than we would. He feels just as hurt.

And you know, when you think of the cross, I've heard him

enough. You know all my sin.

He's already been through all that pain and here I am just

slapping him or spitting on his face.

He's too good. He will proudly call me his son.

And yet an embarrassment. I have tended to shirk back and

hide, to be timid about it. If I will not proudly proclaim

him without shame or fear, he's not going to proclaim me.

I want to say it's it's OK if you're nervous about it because

it's hard to stick out. It's human nature to want to

just blend in with your peers. It's what we do.

Even everyone who tries to be so unique.

Like when I was a kid, it was the emo phase.

I didn't go through that phase, but it's a, it was the, it was

the end thing to be different about, you know, so, but even

then you see this groups of people that are all doing the

same thing because you do want to blend in with your friends

and it's hard to stick out. So it's OK if your knees shake

because you're nervous, but stand anyway?

There's a difference between just being nervous and actually

being ashamed. That's right.

But if the people around us, they only see us as this timid

or toned down, mild and embarrassed when it comes to

God, how can we expect to be soul winners in the midst of

like minded believers? We shout His praise and we live

for Him. No problem, but we kind of

mumbled and we're and we're ashamed that we believe in God

in front of our Co workers or classmates or or lost family or

friends. My relationship with God is not

meant to be hid. It's meant to shine bright so

that everyone can see and it's not so that I can stick out.

That's not the purpose and so that he can shine through me

because God cares about all those who are still lost and I'm

the only Bible some people are going to read.

I need to make sure they're reading the right stuff if

they're going up based off of me.

I believe was the apostle Pope Paul that wrote down follow me

even as I follow Christ because they could follow him and by

following his examples, he followed Christ so closely they

were following Christ. I want to be like that.

If someone decides to model themselves after me that they'd

be modeling themselves after Christ.

But that can't happen if I'm too ashamed about it.

Here's the last thought I'd like to leave us with here tonight.

In the book series called Aragon, there is a character.

It's his cousin, the main character's cousin named Roran,

whose fiance gets kidnapped. He gets terribly injured and the

village he lives is in danger of destruction by the King's army.

But his love for his fiance led him to the role of leader that

he never wanted to be as he stands up and convinces his

village to leave and to follow him while he pursues her.

His pursuit of her and the battles and the struggles he

went through to reach her was no small feat.

It took several months. He risked his life countless

times. He was a completely different

man by the time he finally did catch up to her.

He ended up doing many incredible and crazy things to

rescue her. He paid any cost, went through

any amount of embarrassment, humility, sometimes he was

raised up and yeah to the highs and lows.

But his pursuit of her when he finally brought her back and to

the safety of this new army he was now a part of.

To the men around him, when they looked at her, she looked like a

goddess, even though she was described as pretty plain when

you look at her. But Roaring's love, commitment,

and crazy pursuit of her caused others to realize that she must

be worth more than what we initially realized.

More than any other woman around her, they looked at her in awe

and admiration, not because they knew anything about her, but

they got to know Roaring and knew about his love for her

through his actions and his exploits.

His love for her was so strong that literally nothing else

mattered and it was obvious to everyone around him.

Does my pursuit of God make others realize he's worth more

than anything else? Come on, that's good.

Do we have a relationship with Him that we are so passionate

and real about? That those around us want to

have what we do? That they will look and what

they thought was an unappealing God and realized maybe I'm

really missing out on the most worthwhile thing that could have

ever known. Or are we just too uncommitted,

non serious or embarrassed for others to see His light through

us so our musicians can come as I as I finish up here.

Matthew 1344 again, the Kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure

hid in a field, the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and

for a joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and

buyeth that field. In layman terms, for everyone

that struggles with King James Version, he's talking about the

Kingdom of God is just like a treasure that was just hid

somewhere that would a man happened to stumble upon that

treasure, he hides it a little bit better and he gladly goes

and sells everything. Imagine literally selling

everything you have, your home, your car, everything because

you've seen that treasure and you decided what I have does not

matter compared to this. He gladly sold everything else

so that he could go buy that field and gain that treasure.

That's what the Kingdom of God is like.

That's what a relationship with God is like.

A treasure worth more than anything else we have.

My relationship with God should be the most valuable and

treasured part of my life. That's worth any cost I have to

pay because I'm going to long for stuff.

I've given up. It's human nature but it's worth

it. You know when when I married my

wife I gave up a lot of the perks that come with being

single and I do miss them sometimes.

I live to be home alone in peace and quiet.

But what I have now is to say it's worth it.

Doesn't even cover it. I would not, I wouldn't even

give a moment of consideration of going back for what I have

now. And I want to be so close to God

that everything else is like that.

That yes, though I missed some things I might give up for him

compared to him, I really don't want it and I'm OK at moving

forward without it. I want to be so close to Him

that it encourages new believers to grow and their relationship

with Him and that it causes the loss to see that this is a

treasure worth pursuing. So you can go ahead and stand.

This altar is open. You can come to the altar.

You can stay in your seat. But let us just pray that God

let me be as close to you as I can possibly be, and let me win

souls, because through me they see just how wonderful you are.